`Oh, blast it, no! I couldn't stand that.'

`And finally, should you wish your wife to be ready to sink into the earth when she hears you mentioned; and to loathe the very sound of your voice, and shudder at your approach?'

`She never will; she likes me all the same, whatever I do.'

`Impossible, Mr. Hattersley! you mistake her quiet submission for affection.'

`Fire and fury--'

`Now don't burst into a tempest at that--I don't mean to say she does not love you--he does, I know, a great deal better than you deserve--but I am quite sure, that if you behave better, she will love you more, and if you behave worse, she will love you less and less till all is lost in fear, aversion, and bitterness of soul, if not in secret hatred and contempt. But, dropping the subject of affection, should you wish to be the tyrant of her life--to take away all the sunshine from her existence, and make her thoroughly miserable?'

`Of course not; and I don't, and I'm not going to.'

`You have done more towards it than you suppose.'

`Pooh, pooh! she's not the susceptible, anxious, worriting creature you imagine: she's a little meek, peaceable, affectionate body; apt to be rather sulky at times, but quiet and cool in the main, and ready to take things as they come.'

`Think of what she was five years ago, when you married her, and what she is now.'

`I know--he was a little plump lassie then, with a pretty pink and white face: now, she's a poor little bit of a creature, fading and melting away like a snow-wreath'--but hang it!--By Jupiter, that's not my fault!'

`What is the cause of it then? Not years, for she's only five and twenty.

`It's her own delicate health, and--confound it, madam! what would you make of me?--and the children, to be sure, that worry her to death between them.'

`No, Mr. Hattersley, the children give her more pleasure than pain: they are fine well dispositioned children-- '

`I know they artless `em!'

`Then why lay the blame on them?--I'll tell you what it is: it's silent fretting and constant anxiety on your account, mingled I suspect, with something of bodily fear on her own. When you behave well, she can only rejoice with trembling; she has no security, no confidence in your judgment or principles; but is continually dreading the close of such short-lived felicity: when you behave ill, her causes of terror and misery are more than any one can tell but herself. In patient endurance of evil, she forgets it is our duty to admonish our neighbours of their transgressions.--Since you will mistake her silence for indifference, come with me, and I'll show you one or two of her letters--no breach of confidence, I hope, since you are her other half.'

He followed me into the library. I sought out and put into his hands two of Milicent's letters; one dated from London and written during one of his wildest seasons of reckless dissipation; the other in the country during a lucid interval. The former was full of trouble and anguish; not accusing him, but deeply regretting his connection with his profligate companions, abusing Mr. Grimsby and others, insinuating bitter things against Mr. Huntingdon, and most ingeniously throwing the blame of her husband's misconduct on to other men's shoulders. The latter was full of hope and joy, yet with a trembling consciousness that this